LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The Golden Arrow Diner postcard has long been a favorite of Lincoln Highway and diner fans. The back lists it as “Lincoln Highway, US No 1, Langhorne.” After having written books on the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, and Diners of Pennsylvania, I still had no idea exactly where it was located.
The original books were written pre-Internet, so we now have the world of online resources. But it’s not THAT easy: one site, for example, listed it in 1953 at “City Line ON Roosevelt Blvd, Trevose,” another said “City Line ABOVE Roosevelt,” and yet another, “Roosevelt Blvd NORTH OF City Line” One post said across from a cemetery, another said the cemetery was behind it.
Best I can tell, it was just southwest of Street Road (which is now Old Street Road, dead-ending at newer, wider Route 1). The diner’s name was registered by Emilio Ciotti in 1951. As the postcard back notes, the Golden Arrow was build by Comac in Irvington, N.J., a relatively rare make.
Golden Arrow Diner, 1954. © Getty Images.
1958
1960
The diner moved in 1967, though not far, and became the kitchen for a new, bigger venture of Emidio or “George” and Lena Ciotti: the Golden Arrow Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge Of Trevose, 3631 Street Road, Cornwells Heights, Pa. Check the map above for both old and new locations.
The Bucks County Courier Times of Nov. 17, 1967, said this new location had a plush dining room, cocktail lounge, wall-to-wall carpeting, bay window, and large aquarium. An in-house jazz trio of piano, drums, and upright bass provided “the Philadelphia sound, if you know what that is.”
1971
In recent years, it was sold and remodeled into the Stadium Bar & Grill. This Google Street View shows what may be the diner sticking out of the larger building:
Unfortunately we can no longer check — the Stadium was demolished in 2015, replaced by a park. Now, barely a block away, the Metro Diner serves customers from a modern shopping plaza.
Final odd note — in 1994 there was an ad looking for workers for a Golden Arrow Diner on Rts 11 & 15, Shamokin Dam, Pa., and then a flurry of these ads in 1997. Then that trail goes cold too, more roadside history lost to time….
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